Nothing was said to any one else about their intention; only when they set out some days after this to go to the cave as usual, Ransey Tansey took with him several blue, red, and white lights. He determined in his own mind that this stalact.i.te cave should be turned into a kind of fairy palace for once in a way.
He also carried a small bull"s-eye lantern, so that when lights went out they should not be plunged into darkness altogether.
They had been rather longer than usual in starting on this particular morning, and as the day was very beautiful, and the trees and flowers, b.u.t.terflies and birds, all looking bright and gay, they must have lingered long on the road. At all events, it was quite one o"clock before they arrived at the cove, reached the cave, and launched their boat.
The fish, moreover, seemed to-day anxious to be caught, and excellent sport was enjoyed.
It only wanted two hours to sunset when they regained the mouth of the cave.
There would be moonlight to guide them home, however, even if they should be half an hour late.
Yes, and it was a full moon too. Mark this, reader, for with each full moon comes a spring tide!
I have no words to convey to any one the glorious sight they beheld when they at last entered the stalact.i.te cave and lit their fire of wood and gra.s.s. Fitz had described it well--crystal icicles all around hanging from the vaulted roof, and raised high above the snow-white floor; walls of crystal, and strange, weird statues of a kind of marble.
They sat there in silent admiration until the fire began to burn low; then Ransey Tansey lit up the cave, first with a dazzling white light, then with blue, and finally with crimson.
And this ended the show, but it was one that Nelda would dream about for weeks to come.
How long they had stayed in this wondrous cave they could not tell, but, lo! to their dismay, when they reached the place where they had drawn up the boat, it was gone, and the waves were lapping up far inside. The dinghy had been floated away, and they were thus imprisoned for the night.
The moon, too, had gone down, for in these seas it neither rises nor sets at the same time it does in Britain.
Little Nelda was afraid to spend the night near to the dark water. Some awful beast, she said, might come out and drag her in, so back they went to the crystal cave. Alas! it had lost its charm now.
What a lonesome, weary time it was, and they dared not leave before daylight!
The fearless boy Fitz, after many, many hours had pa.s.sed, went away, like a bird from the ark, to see if the waters were yet a.s.suaged. He brought back word that the sun was rising, but that the water was still high.
The truth is, they had all slept without knowing it, and during this time the tide had gone back and once more risen, or, in other words, it had ebbed and flowed.
The anxiety of Tandy and the others on board the hulk may be better imagined than described when night fell and the wanderers did not return. For a time they expected them every minute, for the moon was still shining bright and clear in the west and tipping the waves with silver.
Tandy set out by himself at last, hoping to meet the little party. He walked for fully two miles along the track by which they most often came. Again and again he shouted and listened, but no answering shout came back to his, though he could hear now and then the dreary cry of a night-bird as it flew low over the woods in the gauzy glamour that the moon was shedding over everything.
But the moon itself would shortly sink, and so, uncertain what to do next, he returned, hoping against hope that the children might have reached the hulk before him.
What a long, dreary night it was! No one slept much. Of this I am sure, for the lost ones were friends both fore and aft.
But the greatest sorrow was to come, for, lo! when next morning at daybreak they reached the cave, the first thing that caught their eyes was the dinghy--beached, but bottom uppermost. Fishing gear and the oars were also picked up; but, of course, there was no sign of the children.
With grief, poor Tandy almost took leave of his senses, and it was indeed a pitiable sight to see him wandering aimlessly to and fro upon the coral beach, casting many a hopeless glance seawards.
Good, indeed, would it have been for him had tears come to his relief.
But these were denied him. Even the consolations that honest James Malone poured into his ears were unheeded; perhaps they were hardly even heard.
"Death comes to all sooner or later. We do wrong to repine. Ah, my dear Tandy, G.o.d Himself knows what is best for us, and our sorrows here will all be joys in the land where you and I must be ere long."
Well-meant plat.i.tudes, doubtless, but they brought no comfort to the anguished heart of the poor father.
It was noticed by one of the men that the strange bird Admiral, who had accompanied the search party, seemed plunged in grief himself. He walked about the beach, but ate nothing. He perched upon the keel of the upset boat, and over and over again he turned his long neck downwards, and wonderingly gazed upon the fishing gear and oars.
Then he disappeared.
We must now return to the cave where we left our smaller heroes.
Ransey Tansey"s greatest grief was in thinking about his father. It would be quite a long time yet before the tide ebbed sufficiently to permit them to leave the cave and scramble along the beach to the top of the cove. Well, there was nothing for it but to wait. But this waiting had a curious ending.
They had returned to the stalact.i.te cave, and Ransey had once more lit his lamp, when suddenly, far at the other end, they heard something that made poor Nelda quake with fear and cling to her brother"s arm.
"Oh, it is a ghost!" she cried--"an old woman"s ghost!"
I cannot otherwise describe the sound than as a weary kind of half sigh, half moan, on a loud falsetto key.
No wonder Nelda thought it emanated from some old lady"s ghost; though what an old lady"s ghost could possibly be doing down here, it would have been difficult indeed to guess.
Bob took another view of the matter. He barked loudly and l.u.s.tily, and rushed forward. It was no angry bark, however.
Next minute he came running back, and when Ransey Tansey turned the light on him he could see by the commotion among the long, rough hair which covered his rump that the f.a.g-end of a tail he possessed was being violently but joyfully agitated.
"Come on," he seemed to say; "follow me. You will be surprised!"
Without fear now, the children followed the dog, and, lo! not far off, standing solemnly in a kind of crystalline pulpit, was the Admiral himself. No wonder they were all astonished, or that the bird himself seemed pleased. But off the crane hopped now, the dog and the children too following, and there, not thirty yards from the place where they had been all night, was a landward opening into the cave.
It was surrounded with bush, and how the Admiral had found it must ever remain a mystery.
Ten minutes after this poor Tandy was clasping his children to his breast.
Innocent wee Babs was patting his cheek, and saying, "Never mind, daddy--never mind, dear daddy." Childish consolation certainly, but, oh, so sweet! No wonder his pent-up feelings were relieved by tears at last.
The crane allayed _his_ feelings by dancing a _pas de joie_ on the coral sand. Bob gave vent to his by rushing about and barking at everything and everybody, but especially at the boat, which he seemed to regard as the innocent cause of all the trouble.
"Wowff--wowff--wow! Why did it run away anyhow?"
That is what Bob wanted to know.
But the tide had ebbed sufficiently to permit of a visit to the cave of delight, as Ransey called it.
James and Tandy, with Ransey and Fitz, embarked, the others remaining on sh.o.r.e.
Both men were as much delighted and astonished at what they saw as the children themselves had been. A large quant.i.ty of withered branches and foliage had been taken in the boat, to make a fire in the crystalline cave.
"But oh, father," said Ransey, "you should have seen it last night when we lit it up with crimson light!"